Discouraging...

[Shellie]

Sometimes I feel like people need to be told they need to be held back in Sunday School.

[pastorables]

Okay.......?????

Is this kind of like a church member who asked me if we really believe in eternal punishment for the wicked?

[Shellie]

LOL. Or kind of like the one who nods his head and says loudly, "Amen!" and then commits the same offense before church is over?

[TW]

That's because it dosen't apply to them.


TW

[dolfan]

It is scary, isn't it?

People who are brought up "in church", in supposedly Christian homes and under biblical teaching ..... aren't equipped.

I don't know who is to blame, but I know who is responsible to make it right. Each one of us and them.

Teaching and learning are poor in many places. That's why I admire what is happening in the developing countries with mission work that is aimed at providing quality Bible knowledge. It is bold, it is apostolic and it is happening.

What happens to those of us in our culture where there is plenty of opportunity to teach and to learn, yet where many of us find a lack of interest? Prayer and boldness are needed. I speak for myself, here. I have to tell, I have to teach, I have to show and help. That's all I know. But, I need to do more. I need to lead more. I need fewer distractions in my working life (but what do you do? -- gotta work!). I need the power and preparation of God and the absence of self-reliance. I need to repent of so many patterns and humble before God to follow Him in truth.

This week (I'm doing the John MacArthur Scripture Memory program this year), I'm committing Jeremiah 9:23, 24 to memory. The chapter declares this sorry state of things: "[My people] refuse to know me, declares the Lord". (v. 6). God states that he will "refine them and test them" (v. 7) and that Jerusalem will be a "heap of ruins .... and ... Judah ... a desolation". (v. 11). Why? "Because they have forsaken my law that I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice or walked in accord with it, but have stubbornly followed their own hearts and have gone after the Baals. ...".

Being careful not to overstate the parallels, here, is there little doubt that people that populate our churches "refuse to know" God? That they follow their own hearts instead of His Word?? [Ironically, or not, just as I am typing this, I received a text from someone I know who we have worked with and pleaded with and received and ministered to for almost 2 years now, and she is telling me that her missing "wife" is found and that "I know these things are unapproved ...we need help....just glad I found her alive .... thanks to Jesus ... thanku for prayers". (Needless to say, I didn't pray for what she's thanking for.)] But, this is not just an issue of people still bound in sin and at least somewhat aware of it; this is an issue for those who, like Israel, are in bondage and refuse to acknowledge it because they are stubborn and follow their own hearts. They take refuge in their identity as Christians but other than wearing the name, they do nothing to come into conformity with the image of Christ.

Am I wrong in somehow maintaining that the church in America is not, by and large, fulfilling Christ's command to make disciples? Are men like Francis Chan and David Platt, (whose writings and sermons God has used to motivate me and shape me in much the same way as men of previous generations were moved by the likes of Whitefield, Wesley, Sunday and Moody), just wrong? Or, is the Holy Spirit, indeed (as I am convinced He is) waking His people up to obedience to the commands of Jesus? Is the Spirit grieved, and if He has been, does His grief now find satisfaction in our obedience? I pray that is so!!! I pray that I obey, that you obey, that we do the work that Jesus commanded His disciples to do, so that the power of the Spirit that has been given us, just as the Word of God is given us, accomplishes the purposes whereunto He is sent!

My wife and I are dead dog tired of the status quo. We are tired of our own excuses!!! Like a once appetizing taste, now our own words are bitter in our own mouths and we long for the Lord. Whatever You must do, whatever we must do, Lord!

I pray that we do not see the day when the church in America has to mourn, wail, cry and lament its own ruin due to shame, deserting the promises of God, and leaving the things of God to be ransacked by those who are not His people, that we do not have to sing dirges and laments and that our children are not cut off nor our young men and young women taken from the places that God wants us to be, that we don't fall dead like dung in an open field, and that we do not boast in anything but that we know and understand the God who practices steadfast love, righteousness and justice and all the thing in which He delights.